41 
title of "Notes on the genus Yucca," his elaborate revision of the 
genus here first comprehensively treated. Two years later appeared 
his notes on Agave, in which are enumerated and described the 
species detected within the limits of the United States, as well as a 
few foreign species previously imperfectly known. For many years 
Dr. Engelmann studied the genus Fifis, and our knowledge of the 
North-American species of this is due in a large measure to his inves- 
tigations. His last botanical publication, a sketch of the true grape- 
vines of the United States, although written some months eatlier, and 
previous .to his last European journey, was issued late in 1883. 
Dr. Engelmann's botanical writings were not voluminous. _ All his 
work, however, is characterized by the most careful and conscientious 
preparation, great, good judgment, classical methods of treatment, 
and remarkable thoroughness. His investigations^ were slow and 
laborious, often lasting for years in the case of a single plant. No 
botanist was ever less anxious to publish prematurely the results of 
his observations, or was less satisfied with the results of his own 
knowledge. So admirable, and in these days unusual, caution has 
made Dr. Engelmann's botanical writings masterpieces in their way, 
worthy to stand with the best productions of their nature which have 
yet appeared. This very caution and desire to wait for completeness, 
however, which has made Dr. Englemann's published papers what 
they are, has cost the world avast store of valuable mformation 
collected by him during long years of carefulinvestigation, but never 
quite ready, in his critical judgment, for publication. 
Dr. Engelmann, in addition to his professional and botanical 
labors, was a most zealous meteorological observer, and, at the 
time of his death, was probably one of the oldest meteorologists 
in the United States. His meteorological and other miscellaneous 
papers, as well as his important botanical ones since 1859, 
have been published in the Transactions of the St. Louis Academy 
of Science, which he was largely instrumental in establishing, and 
which he long served as president. 
Dr. Engehnann was a member of the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences, a corporate member of the National Academy of Scien- 
ces, a foreign member of the Linnean Society of London, and an 
active or corresponding member of many other learned bodies. He 
long enjoyed the friendship, the respect and the correspondence of 
many of the most distinguished botanists of the age, everywhere the 
recognized authority in those departments of his favorite science 
which had most interested him. , 
(For this account of Dr. Engelmann's life and labors, and for the 
engraving which illustrates it, we are indebted to our cotemporary. 
Science. ) 
New North American Fungi. 
^ Pezua (Mollisia) FUMiGATA.-Densely gregarious, minute 
(•13-.16""") sooty-black; disk nearly plane, scarcely margined min- 
utely papillose; asci oblong-cylindrical, 50 x 7//; paraphyses thickened 
ahove; sporidia oblique or biseriate, oblong, 2-3-nucleate, hyaline, 
